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Readers hoping to buy Games Workshop Group PLC (LON:GAW) for its dividend will need to make their move shortly, as the stock is about to trade ex-dividend. You will need to purchase shares before the 17th of December to receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 25th of January.
Games Workshop Group's next dividend payment will be UK£0.60 per share, and in the last 12 months, the company paid a total of UK£1.45 per share. Last year's total dividend payments show that Games Workshop Group has a trailing yield of 1.4% on the current share price of £102.1. If you buy this business for its dividend, you should have an idea of whether Games Workshop Group's dividend is reliable and sustainable. As a result, readers should always check whether Games Workshop Group has been able to grow its dividends, or if the dividend might be cut.
See our latest analysis for Games Workshop Group
If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. Games Workshop Group paid out 66% of its earnings to investors last year, a normal payout level for most businesses. Yet cash flows are even more important than profits for assessing a dividend, so we need to see if the company generated enough cash to pay its distribution. Dividends consumed 59% of the company's free cash flow last year, which is within a normal range for most dividend-paying organisations.
It's encouraging to see that the dividend is covered by both profit and cash flow. This generally suggests the dividend is sustainable, as long as earnings don't drop precipitously.
Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.
Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?
Companies with consistently growing earnings per share generally make the best dividend stocks, as they usually find it easier to grow dividends per share. Investors love dividends, so if earnings fall and the dividend is reduced, expect a stock to be sold off heavily at the same time. It's encouraging to see Games Workshop Group has grown its earnings rapidly, up 42% a year for the past five years. Management appears to be striking a nice balance between reinvesting for growth and paying dividends to shareholders. Earnings per share have been growing quickly and in combination with some reinvestment and a middling payout ratio, the stock may have decent dividend prospects going forwards.
The main way most investors will assess a company's dividend prospects is by checking the historical rate of dividend growth. Games Workshop Group has delivered an average of 19% per year annual increase in its dividend, based on the past 10 years of dividend payments. Both per-share earnings and dividends have both been growing rapidly in recent times, which is great to see.